"The Advantages of Automated Appointment Reminders," written by Bob Young, appeared in the August/September 2009 edition of the call center magazine ANSWERStat.  Bob’s premise is that automating appointment reminders can provide health care providers with a competitive edge by:

• Saving time and expense over manual phone calls or reminder postcards

• Reducing no-shows (thereby increasing the associated revenue)

• Easing staff workload

• Improving patient care and patient relations

Bob also points out that automating the creation and sending of appointment reminder messages removes potential errors associated with manual execution.

Let me provide some additional ideas for your consideration:

• Under the HIPAA Privacy Rule, appointment reminders are considered part of an individual’s treatment and, therefore, can be made without an authorization. However, HIPAA requires that reasonable requests for alternative means of receiving health communications be accommodated (such as a placing a reminder call to a work number instead of a home phone).

• In addition to reminder phone calls, appointment reminders can also be sent via email or SMS text messages

• Offering automated appointment reminders in multiple languages can result in an improved level of patient care.

The article states that the payback period for an automated appointment reminder system is a few months. Your mileage may vary, but our experience shows that such a system can usually pay for itself in a matter of weeks.

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Have you considered using ReminderPro to send appointment reminder text messages (SMS) to your patients' cell phones? With a bit of work upfront, ReminderPro can do this for you. But there are some considerations.

Most cell phones can receive emails as text messages. The key is knowing where to send the email. Let me give you an example. I use Verizon as my cell phone service provider. If I email 5205551212@vtext.com, the message will be received on my cell phone as a text message. Do you have patients that would like to receive reminders on their cell phones? If so, simply obtain their cell numbers and the providers they use, then enter the proper email addresses in your practice management system. When you generate the call session and send emails, those patients will receive a text message reminder.

The email address to be used varies by provider. It will always be phonenumber@something.com. For a list of the domain names for the various cell phone providers, you can check out this page (external link), or contact the service providers directly.

Now, a word of caution. Not everyone receives text messages on their cell phones for free. The mobile plan they purchased determines this. So if a patient wishes to receive text reminder messages, they must either have a plan that doesn't charge them, or they need to be willing to absorb the cost. There is an interesting article on the AIDS.gov website that discusses this.

In addition, cell service providers impose a limitation on the number of characters in the text messages (usually 120 or 160). Our recommendation is to keep text message appointment reminders under 100 characters.

And there are other considerations directly related to getting email addresses into ReminderPro. First, your PMS/EMR must have the ability to include the email address in the data ReminderPro imports. Second, ReminderPro's import must have the ability to import these email addresses along with the other appointment data. If you are not sure if ReminderPro is set to import email addresses, our Support Department can help you find out.

In summary, this is what you need to consider if you want to offer this service to your patients:

• You must have the patient's cell number on file, as well as the cell phone provider.
• You must know what the email address is for that provider, and have it correctly entered in the email address field in your practice management system.
• Your practice management system must be able include the email address in the export to ReminderPro, which must then be able to import it.
• You must make sure to let patients interested in receiving reminder texts know that they could be charged by their provider for receiving these texts.
• The message sent to their phone should be kept under 100 characters.

With just a few steps you can have a very useful service to offer your patients.

•    In 2000, a propane-powered shuttle system was instituted and cars are banned from the upper canyon for seven months out of the year. This has minimized traffic congestion as well as reduced air and noise pollution. This free shuttle system also services the nearby town of Springdale, Utah.

•    The Zion Visitor Center incorporates energy efficient building concepts such as clerestory windows, a Trombe wall and a cooltower to limit energy consumption and reduce operating costs. Take a look in more detail, it's fascinating!

•    California Condors, wild turkeys, and Bighorn sheep have been introduced to the Park. The wild turkeys can often be seen by park visitors riding the shuttle.